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Manto's "Toba Tek Singh"

Article in Annals of King Edward Medical University Lahore Pakistan December 2016
DOI: 10.21649/akemu.v22i4.1455

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 Medical Humanities Section
Mantos Toba Tek Singh
Rabbia Abbas,1 M. Faisal Amir Malik,2 Ali Madeeh Hashmi3
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely
under conditions of absolute reality
Shirley Jackson "The Haunting of Hill House"
Toba Tek Singh
Toba Tek Singh1 is a tale about the partition of
the Indo-Pak sub-continent. It is, by some accounts,
the best short story ever written on this subject2. Iro-
nically, the story shows us that when faced with the
chaos and bloodshed of partition, the response of a
person committed to a mental institution appears more
'sane' and appropriate than those around him.
Published in 1955, the story takes place inside the
Lahore insane asylum (today called the Punjab Ins-
titute of Mental Health), two or three years after par-
tition. At a high-level conference, a decision has been
made for the exchange of lunatics in insane asylums.
When news of this decision spreads, it causes con-
sternation among the inmates of the asylum. Their fear
is made worse by their ignorance of 'Hindustan' and
Pakistan. According to one of the inmates, Pakistan
is the place in Hindustan where razors are made.1
Another volunteers that the people in Hindustan go
strutting around like devils.1 One of the in mates
1 visiting him, and still cries every time she sees her
House Officer, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences, King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital,
Lahore Pakistan
2
House Officer, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences, King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital,
Lahore Pakistan
3
Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Tenure Track), King
Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital, Lahore
Pakistan
Contribution
All Authors have contributed in Study Design, Data Collection,
Data Analysis, Data Interpretation, Manuscript Writing and Appr-
oval.
Corresponding Author: Dr. Ali Madeeh Hashmi, Associate Professor of Psychiatry
(Tenure Track), King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital, Lahore Pakistan
Email: ahashmi39@gmail.com Ph: +92-334-4444121
climbs a tree, seats himself on a branch and gives an
unbroken two-hour speech about the subtle problem of
Pakistan and Hindustan. When the guards ask him to
come down, he climbs even higher. When he is
warned and threatened, he says, I dont want to live in
either Hindustan or Pakistan. I'll live right here in this
tree. A quiet radio-engineer, for some obscure reason
decides that the situation warrants freedom from
clothes and starts to wander around the garden
completely naked.
Manto gives us brief, pithy descriptions of some of
the lunatics e.g. A Muslim lunatic from Chiniot, a past
member of the All-India Muslim League, announces
that he is Quaid-e-Azam and then promptly declares
war on a Sikh, who, in his madness considered himself
Master Tara Singh.
Midway through the story, Manto introduces the
titular character, known to everyone as Toba Tek
Singh. His real name is Bishan Singh and he has been
confined to the asylum for fifteen years, during which
time, he has not, even once, sat or lain down. The only
words he has spoken during the fifteen years are the
nonsensical, Upar di gur gur di annex di be dhyana di
mung di dal of the lantern.1 Once a month when his
relatives came to meet him, he agrees to take a bath
and cleanup. He has a daughter who has grown older
father.
In the aftermath of partition his relatives have
stopped visiting him. His one desire is that they visit
him again. The reason he asks repeatedly about Toba
Tek Singh is that his lands were in Toba Tek Singh
and he thinks the relatives are in Toba Tek Singh too.
A Muslim friend from Toba Tek Singh, Fazal Din,
arrives to inform him of his familys safe arrival in
Hindustan. Just as Toba Tek Singh begins to remem-
ber and ask after his daughter, Fazal Din mumbles,
stammers and tells him she is fine. But we realize what
has happened to her. The same fate that befell tens of
ANNALS VOL 22, ISSUE 4, OCT. DEC. 2016 335
 RABBIA ABBAS, M. FAISAL AMIR MALIK, ALI MADEEH HASHMI
thousands of women during the madness of partition
has claimed the innocence and perhaps the life of Toba
Tek Singh's daughter, Roop Kaur as well.
Toba Tek Singh also learns from Fazal Din that
the tehsil of Toba Tek Singh is now situated inside
Pakistan. He is unwilling to leave the place of his
ancestors. When he is taken to the border he refuses to
cross-over into Hindustan. Instead he runs off into the
no-mans land in between the two countries where in
the pre-dawn peace and quiet, from Bishan Singhs
throat came a shriek that pierced the sky. From here
and there a number of officers came running, and they
saw that the man who for fifteen years, day and night,
had constantly stayed on his feet, lay prostrate. There,
behind the barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind
the same kind of wire, was Pakistan. In between, on
that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek
Singh.1
Thus ends Manto's most poignant short story. The
partition of India and Pakistan literally ripping into
two the soul of Toba Tek Singh and claiming his life.
Saadat Hassan Manto suffered from anxiety and
other mental issues from an early age. He later became
alcoholic. He continued to suffer from symptoms of
anxiety and depression all of his life.3 It has been sug-
gested that his mental distress was a source of his
creativity and helped him write some of his masterly
short stories.4 The relationship between madness and
creativity is a matter of great popular, as well as scho-
larly, fascination. It is a hotly debated topic5, to say
the least. Perhaps this debate will never be resolved to
everyones satisfaction. Suffice to say that the long list
of illustrious names that have succumbed to melan-
choly and madness ensures that this topic remains
alive: Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Vincent Van Gogh and others in the
West, to name a few. In our part of the world Mir Taqi
'Mir', Mirza Ghalib and many others who have fought
with the demons of melancholy and madness. Some
triumphed, others succumbed.
Toba Tek Singh is Saadat Hasan Mantos most
personal story. He wrote it while he himself was an
inmate in Lahores mental hospital. It was, in many
ways, reflective of his own inner confusion and lost
sense of identity. Writing, at its best, is a lonely life,
336
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the great Ernest Hemingway had proclaimed in his
Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Hemingway killed
himself with a shotgun seven years after he made that
speech. Mantos downward spiral through poverty,
alcoholism and madness culminated in his death in
1955 at the young age of 43. He had written the text
for the epitaph of his tombstone six months before he
died. Buried here is Saadat Hasan Manto in whose
bosom are enshrined all the secrets of the art of short
story writing. Buried under mounds of earth, he conti-
nues to contemplate who is the greater short story
writer: God or he.
Could Mantos life have been saved? Was there a
way to help him overcome his demons and continue
creating his masterpieces? We may never know the
answer to these questions but one thing is certain: the
urge to create extracts a high price. It is our task as
healers to understand that and help our patients under-
stand it as well. Modern medicines may not offer a
panacea to the wounded artist but a sympathetic ear
and a compassionate heart can go a long way in help-
ing them heal and perhaps continue the fight against
their inner demons.
References
1. Manto SH, Pritchet FW. Toba Tek Singh by Saadat
Hassan Manto translated from the Urdu by Frances W.
Pritchet [Internet]. [cited 2016 Jul 24]. Available from:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/to
bateksingh/translation.html
2. Pritchet FW. About the Story [Internet].
Available from:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/to
bateksingh/storynotes.html
3. M Hashmi A, Awais Aftab M. The touch of madness:
manto as a psychiatric case study. Pakistan J Med Sci
[Internet]. 2013 Sep [cited 2016 Jul 24]; 29 (5): 1094
8. Available from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24353698
4. Hashmi AM. Manto: A Psychological Portrait. Soc Sci.
40 (11-12): 515.
5. Silvia PJ, Kaufman JC. Creativity and Mental Illness.
In: Kaufman JC, Sternberg RJ, editors. The Cambridge
Handbook of Creativity. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010: 2010.
ANNALS VOL 22, ISSUE 4, OCT. DEC. 2016